


Words on Skin

by limeta



Series: Soulmate bonds [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: AU, BAMF Hermione Granger, Enemies, Gen, Girl-Who-Lived (Harry Potter), Hermione Granger-centric, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, hermione is the girl who lived
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-23
Updated: 2020-08-23
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:20:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26046421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/limeta/pseuds/limeta
Summary: On his ankle is coiled a sentence: Let's duel. / Tom Riddle looks at it and wonders what these words mean as no amount of raw scrubbing and skin peeling can get them off; when his skin mends so do the words.On her wrist is coiled a sentence: Girl Who Lived, prepare to die. / Hermione Granger looks at it and wonders why these frightening words are on her skin.
Relationships: Hermione Granger & Tom Riddle | Voldemort
Series: Soulmate bonds [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1909717
Comments: 8
Kudos: 83





	Words on Skin

Hermione grows up with her aunt and uncle. The Grangers are dead and her aunt tells her, never one to keep secrets from children (perhaps because she doesn’t have any children of her own and still abides by her rule of aunts being cool), that the reason why they are dead is because of some magical war.

‘’Like Star Wars?’’

‘’Yes, but that’s not magic that’s sci-fi.’’ Her aunt corrects before her uncle can get it on that territory and say that Star Wars isn’t some hocus pocus mambo jumbo. It is art in its most unsung form – film!

Hermione grows up fully aware of magic. It helps that there’s a sentence coiled around her wrist. They can’t pretend that doesn’t exist, so it’s better to be upfront about things.

* * *

Mrs. Cole takes one look at what’s on Tom Riddle’s ankle and pulls her lips fully in distaste. She tells him to wash it off. Tom, far too young to understand that adults shouldn’t be this mean, tries to wash it off on his own, but when it doesn’t come off; Mrs. Cole takes this up as her responsibility. She grabs a hold of a brush, with thick and pointy bristles, and sets to work until dirt doesn’t come off Tom’s skin, but crimson, smeared blood.

‘’Whatever you’ve done, you best keep it hidden. This is some satanic ritual I do not care for. Do I make myself clear, boy?’’

Tom nods. He has to keep himself from crying out in pain at the wound she’s made on his ankle, lest she truly give him something to cry about.

* * *

Hermione goes to Hogwarts and gets regaled as the Girl Who Lived. Their muggleborn saviour! She feels put on the spot and what little amount of anxiety and subpar social etiquette Hermione’s got going for her manages to triple under this newly crafted duress.

Harry and Ron decide to be her friends. It’s them who tell her about soulmate marks. ‘’You just say them to your soulmate and then just know you’re meant to be together!’’

‘’That’s quite romantic.’’ Hermione’s dry wit never ceases to amaze her. She pulls her robe sleeve over her soulmate mark. It is not for public eye. Her aunt has taught her, from a young age, to keep it hidden and concealed with makeup. Hermione adds a glamour spell to her wrist then, but she doesn’t stop using muggle means. Magic is faulty and can be finited. Water-resistant concealer is better than any spell. She smiles at her aunt and uncle’s ingenuity and gets teased for her buckteeth by Draco Malfoy.

* * *

Abraxas Malfoy tells Tom Riddle that it is not a kind life to live with muggles. That soulmarks are sacred in their culture. ‘’You can’t be bad if you have enough magic to conjure it.’’ He nods. The Slytherins dislike Tom for his hand-me-down robes and his muggle surname and orphan roots. Abraxas offers Tom his hand to shake. ‘’Let’s be friends. I’m certain that you’ll be useful one day.’’

Tom shakes hands with him. He hopes that Abraxas will prove more useful.

* * *

Everything is fine until 1981.

* * *

Everything is fine until 1995.

* * *

Hermione can’t speak, clutching onto the body of Fleur Delacour as she is. Gabrielle surges through the crowd, a terrified, horrified scream escaping like a bird made of fire. She holds onto her sister and weeps. Hermione’s hands shake. Hermione can’t speak. She hasn’t spoken a single word to that wretched creature.

Harry and Ron pull Hermione up from the ground, dusting her clothes off from the grass, the blood, and the chill that has entered her bones and promised never to leave. Hermione can’t move. Harry and Ron pull her.

How has she been able to move? Hermione’s mind rattles on possibilities. First year, she’s dealt more with Professor Quirrel, avoided the whole maze – that was Harry and Ron’s specialty. The Girl Who Lived wants to live, she’s told them. She prefers to stay alive and honour her parents by not getting into needless danger.

Second year, she’s not had a single brush with the Diary. That, too, was Ron and Harry. They seem to be the mischievous pair that drag her along to trouble, constantly. But, Hermione, keeps doing what she knows her sensible dentist parents would want her to. She’s lived and she wants to live on.

Third year, she’s helped the most. But that year has never been about Voldemort. Her parents’ killer.

Fourth year is.

Hermione feels like such a rotten, horrible fool for not training more for this.

* * *

The Girl is in his grasp. His body has been reformed, but he does not speak to her. He speaks to his newly arrived Death Eaters, vowing to punish each and every one of them for their disobedience and lack of loyalty. They are traitors who need to be cowed with fear.

How easily he can attack the Girl, but she is too shell shocked to do anything. Is this his greatest enemy? A meagre mudblood, gaping at the body of her friend. A pretty, girl, yes – but, Lord Voldemort has never cared for one’s aesthetically pleasing nature. He sees people through how useful they are to him. The spare, as he has commanded moments prior, is of no use to his great plan.

Instead of duelling the girl, hurting her as he wants to do – Lucius strays his mind off of his most delicious, darkest fantasies.

‘’My lord –‘’

And he channels all of that anger and glee to be back into a cruciatus curse that renders him a screaming pool of piss and tears. He’ll apologize to Abraxas, but Lucius has not acted as a loyal subject, rather a weasel jumping from side to side needlessly. How someone like his Abraxas could ever raise such a phenomenal failure is beyond him…

But, Voldemort digresses, he swishes a wand through the air and lets Hermione fall to the ground.

She, and Voldemort really doesn’t understand how any of this tied to fate business works, manages to escape with her dead companion. It’s a bit of a blow to his ego. He takes it out on Lucius.

* * *

‘’How’d you escape?’’

Hermione can’t speak of it.

* * *

‘’How did she escape again?’’ Abraxas asks. He’s lazing on one of the chaise longues in Malfoy Manor, eating grapes like a king and not minding for anything else.

Voldemort speaks of it. ‘’I shot her with a killing curse. She fell. I turned around to hold my victorious speech – and then when I turned around she’d left.’’

Abraxas laughs. It’s usually a very beautiful sound. Right now, it only adds salt to injury.

* * *

Hermione feels empty. She cries in the evening and can’t think of anything else to do.

On her wrist is coiled a sentence: Girl Who Lived, prepare to die.

Hermione Granger looks at it and wonders why these frightening words are on her skin. Why do they have to be here with her, why not on someone else? Someone brave like Harry? Someone strategic like Ron? Why on her?

Seeing as the Universe won’t cut her any slack, Hermione goes to open books and reads them until her eyes have run out of tears. Her aunt and uncle wonder about her health, but they’ve taught Hermione to come to them if she’s got something to talk about. They won’t push her. It’s kind of them, really.

Hermione tallies up how many spells she knows. Next time she’ll be better prepared for a fight.

* * *

Voldemort looks down at his ankle. There is no more Mrs. Cole to abuse him for being magic. On his ankle is coiled a sentence: Let's duel.

How much that has shaped him as a person. Ever since finding out that this is something his soulmate will say to him, Voldemort’s prided himself on being the best dueller. He’s made all of his victims duel him, too, hoping to find the one who was meant to be his equal. Hogwash, of course. No one has ever compared to the great Lord Voldemort.

* * *

Their next meeting happens in the Ministry. Aisles upon aisles lined with prophecies emerge from the ground, caging them. It is a fanfare of spell fire. Her team, with Harry as some makeshift leader and Ron as his second.

Voldemort’s organisation with the Death Eaters. Trained adults. Ruthless criminals. Bellatrix Lestrange shines as a beacon of doom by his side. Her eyes are mad, but her hunger for blood is great. She takes out a wand and whispers, croons how much she wants to take on the Girl Who Lived. ‘’Let me play with the ickie little mudblood.’’

‘’No.’’ Voldemort speaks to Bellatrix. He tells everyone that he and the Girl Who Lived have unfinished business. Next he mocks a bow to her, isolating only them two from the crowd, from the battle at hand.

‘’Girl Who Lived, prepare to die.’’ Voldemort speaks.

Hermione’s heart painfully twists at this revelation. She raises up her wand and whispers: ‘’Let’s duel.’’


End file.
